Japanese adults’ literacy and numeracy skills have topped a recent study by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in which 166,000 people in 24 countries were tested.

For young adults aged 16-24, Japan also came third in terms of numeracy, and second behind Finland in literacy. High school graduates from Japan were shown to have comparable literacy skills to those of an Italian university graduate.

Spain, England and the US found themselves near the bottom of the league for each of the four categories but, this writer having been produced by an English education system, it’s entirely possible my literacy and numeracy skills have caused me to misunderstand the results.

Perhaps the most shocking finding of the study was that between 7-27% of the population in participating countries weren’t able to perform simple computer-related tasks such as using a mouse.